Okay movie but doesn't exactly break new ground in terms of character development.

Edit :
Ironically the best scene of the movie ( IMO) is the fight between Iron Man and Rhodey in their suits. The use of music ( i caught Daft Punk and Queen's another one bites the dust) was excellent

Agreed, it was intense and you could really see how each guy felt justified.

My review...I haven't seen it at all, but when I do I will love it because it's another Marvel movie and another step towards building the Marvel Universe on screen. I will love every cameo and easter egg I can find and I will have an even harder time waiting til next year for Thor and Cap and til 2012 for Avengers. I don't have to see it to know I'll love it and I think most of you here are in the same boat. I don't get the whining about too much extra non-Iron Man stuff in it...I thought it was a clear plan by Marvel to set up their universe...but hey, that's just like my opinion, man

Everyone take notice the of the new announcement at the top of the page regarding spoilers - posting here as well for anyone who missed it.

Quote:

Now that Iron Man 2 is being released internationally -we just want to remind everyone of a few spoiler guidelines:

1. SPOILER TAGS: use them. We don't want keep you from discussing the movie openly if you've seen it, but just consider that the movie hasn't been released everywhere yet and even though this is a spoiler forum, just be considerate of your fellow hypsters who haven't seen the movie yet. You can spoil whatever you want, just keep it in tags.

2. LEAKED FOOTAGE: anything showing up on YouTube that is not official footage (like the end credits scene) is considered a bootleg and cannot be posted here for legal reasons. So don't post them. You can discuss the end credits scene in spoiler tags (for now), but don't post videos of that or anything else bootlegged off the actual movie.

We don't want to keep anyone from discussing spoilers, especially now that some of us are lucky enough to be seeing the movie already, we just want everyone to play fair and keep the good stuff in tags until the movie is available (legally!) to everyone.

Thanks!

You're free to talk about anything from the movie, just try to use the spoiler tags whenever possible until next week when the movie is in release everywhere.

I'd give it an 8.75, rounded up to a 9. I'd agree with most of the IGN review. There are a few minor nitpicks, but very minor. It'll never be able to replicate the novelty and freshness of the first film, but it's a great film nonetheless.

Now that my one fear has been relinquished by The VileOne, which villian does

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

Tony take down? Whiplash or Hammer?

__________________

If any character has ever earned the right to enjoy a happy retirement, it is Bruce Wayne. Nolan ought to be commended for caring enough about the character and believing enough in his own vision to provide a definitive, satisfying ending to the story of an ordinary man who turned tragedy into the motivation to accomplish something extraordinary.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

Nick Mundy is the real-life equivalent of Youtube comment: Sure I may be wrong, but I'm loud, so everyone listens to me.

Now that my one fear has been relinquished by The VileOne, which villian does

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

Tony take down? Whiplash or Hammer?

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

Both Tony and Rhodey take down WHiplash in a very lame fight that doesn't even last 1 minute.

Hammer isn't a villain per se. Or better yet he's not an immediate threat to Tony. His downfall is the fact that he puts blind faith in Vanko which backfires on him because he can't control the drones.

This is the third time I've tried posting a response here. SHH is laggy like hell for whatever reason.

Either way, I put 8/10, which is what I would give the first movie as well. Overall I loved it, but the film is more uneven than its predecessor. The story is a bit convoluted, and I sort of found myself feeling Nick Fury didn't belong in there... but overall I felt it was quite good and a lot of fun.

So question, is there an actual music score, or hero's theme this time, or is it more of that lame guitar riff?

No hero's theme. To be fair though the first film had a hero's theme. People might not have liked it, but it was there.
I didn't notice anything resembling a recurring theme in this... maybe the sappy stuff used for the more emotional scenes...

That sucks. He needs a great theme like Superman, Batman and Spider-man... that to me always makes a superhero film more classic and less contemporary. It's what elevates a hero from B-level like Fantastic Four to the top tier.

Spoiler Free review. Just got back from seeing Iron Man 2. My review is as follows.

Firstly, let me say that I found the first film to be awesome, perhaps a little over praised but still a solid foundation to develop a good franchise. Iron Man 2 starts off with a bang, but unfortunately ends with a wimpier. Seriously, I'm pissed this is the best that was offered.

As I sat through the first 40 or so minutes of the film my initial reaction was 'Man, I'm not sure what the critics were on about', the story was solid, the pace good, Stark was charming and charismatic, the villain a genuine threat to Iron Man, the action sequences great, it's was an Iron Man film.

Then something weird happens, the air gets sucked out of the movie, it seems to forget what exactly it was doing, it turns into a mish mash of, well something. Iron Man seems to just disappear, Tony no longer seems to be doing anything particular, Whiplash becomes a glorified mechanic, and the whole Nick Fury/Avengers stuff is horribly stuffed in for no justifiable reason. Iron Man 2 annoyingly stops doing what it started, there's no more threat to Iron Man or for anyone else for that matter, it becomes a big ball of 'meh', the story breaks down, the action dries up, it's like they just put the breaks on.

RDJ is probably the saviour of this film, without him in the lead I have no doubt this film would be received worse than what it currently is. He brings his A game here thankfully and is the best thing about the movie, you can't help but take notice when he's on screen. His interactions with Gwyneth Paltrow are the best scenes in the film, both of them play off each other nicely.

Micky Rourke as Whiplash starts out great, as I said he was a genuine threat in that first act, but then becomes nothing more than a secondary character that doesn't do a hell of a lot else throughout the rest of the film, it's a wasted character. It's a real shame that the character wasn't allowed to be developed further, an opportunity missed here for Whiplash to be one of the great superhero movie villains.

Scarlett Johannson may as well not even be in this film. Black Widow serves no purpose to the story other than to fight a bunch of dudes at the end and and somehow become an instant expert in how to reboot War Machine's suit. She's just kinda 'around' and probably gets less screen time than Jon Favreau does (what's up with that Jon?).

Don Cheadle is fine, wouldn't say he better than Terrence Howard but he's not worse, the character as a whole doesn't really do much other than partner Stark at the end.

I'll give props to Sam Rockwell, he's a joy to watch and you can tell he really laps up the role as Hammer, but again, he's not really threatening or menacing for than matter.

A shout out to Garry Shandling, that guy is hilarious in just about anything, he's quite funny in the few minuets he's on screen.

The action, well it's limited, there's the Monaco Race sequence which is great to watch, and the finale, and that's about it, the only other time Iron Man shows up is when he and Rhodey duke it out at Stark's birthday party. For all the talk of not enough Batman in TDK, there's a distinct lack of Iron Man in this film, I'm certain this will be a complaint. The big boss finale, well anti-climatic can best sum it up.

The Avengers thing is a real annoyance, it is forced into the film for no other reason than to promote what's coming up, it serves as a 15 mins commercial that only comic fans will get, those who are unaware of the Avengers coming up will no doubt be baffled as to who the hell Sam Jackson is and what the hell he is doing here. There's no introduction for the many who weren't aware of his end of credit cameo in film one, nor does he do anything vital, he just appears (Note to Marvel: the majority of the audience don't follow these films as closely as us, think about that). It does nothing but waste time and slow the pace of the film further, time which could have been better spent on continuing with what was started.

Overall, Iron Man is an oddity, it's not bad, it's just we deserved something better than what we got, the first 40 mins was exactly what the rest of the film should have been. I don't know what went wrong but my suspicions are that Marvel was too focused on setting up the Avenger rather than focusing on Iron Man, in which case this film should have called Iron Man 2: Prelude to the Avengers. It seems like Favreau has no say in this film except act one, that's where the film feels like he's firmly in control, after that it becomes Marvel's movie. It won't rank next to the likes of TDK, or X2 or S-M2, anybody going into the theatre thinking this will be up there with the great sequels best leave that line of thought at the ticket counter. My best advice is to soak up the first act of the film because the rest is a let down. I'll be generous and give this 7/10.

__________________
Celebrating 75 years of Batman saving Gotham City.

Fanboys make excuses, real fans acknowledge screw-ups.

Do me a favour - don't break up my posts into multiple quotes when replying, I won't answer back.

they really introduced alot of elements that will help weave the marvel universe together. it felt like it was touching a much larger story, leading into a much bigger story but still maintaining its own, iron man story. the effects were great and the actors were solid.... except justin hammer. i didnt like him, a bit too much improv allowed for him i think.

mickey rourke was awesome. he gave the story alot of credibility. hes such a good actor i bought his performance totally. same with RDJ, hes not just the wise cracker anymore, hes showing alot more depth this time round.

Jackson was a different Fury than i was expecting, hes awesome. cant wait to see him jumping out of a chopper with a big gun in the avengers films. he nailed fury

scarjo wasnt as great as i hoped. she looked like a knock out but she stumbled over the dialogue a bit, but her action and black widow persona was great.

and the after the credits scene just tied it together really well, such an awesome way to end it

The John Ottman theme in Fantastic Four was probably one of the highlights in that dense story. He also did X2, he's a good composer. Yeah, I don't quite remember Iron Man's theme... they should definitely get Hans Zimmer, but I'd say that about any theme.

I would like to make one comment about Iron Man 2, and people's expectations being let down. The reason why Iron Man 2 is not highly praised is because of Iron Man 1. If you notice, everyone compares the sequel directly to Iron Man 1, and because it's not as much of a surprise, and not as good of film, that means Iron Man 2 is bad? The thinking of this is all wrong, just because it's not as good as Iron Man, doesn't mean it's a bad film. I'll give you an example. X1 wasn't that highly praised, and it wasn't that amazing, and because it wasn't that amazing, when X2 was released everyone was blown away by it's awesomeness. So, obviously X2 is highly praised, because it's much better then the first. I think this line of thinking is extremely flawed. Judge a movie by the movie, not by it's predecessor, which is exactly what everyone is doing.

Thing about ScarJo/Black Widow was I found it sort of awkward when she was hanging around in her BW outfit for no good reason.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

the diner scene and the following bit at Stark's place just felt odd. You had this dude in a stylized leather coat and an eye patch, and a hot chick in a tight fitting lycra suit walking around wearing this stuff like it was the most normal thing in the world. I know that's how it is in the comics, but it didn't really work for me.

I don't understand how some here say this is very good,but not as good as Ironman,to me going by that shouldn't that mean that the movie is as good as it but not better than it? I think love is too much of a big thing to say if this isn't as goof as Ironman or better. It strikes me as odd.
*shrugs

And I think the fact that the Avengers build up taking up too much time in the movie is silly,since it's one story out of a bunch of ones that are different. I assume that the real reason for that is that it's drawn out when it shouldn't be.

I would like to make one comment about Iron Man 2, and people's expectations being let down. The reason why Iron Man 2 is not highly praised is because of Iron Man 1. If you notice, everyone compares the sequel directly to Iron Man 1, and because it's not as much of a surprise, and not as good of film, that means Iron Man 2 is bad? The thinking of this is all wrong, just because it's not as good as Iron Man, doesn't mean it's a bad film. I'll give you an example. X1 wasn't that highly praised, and it wasn't that amazing, and because it wasn't that amazing, when X2 was released everyone was blown away by it's awesomeness. So, obviously X2 is highly praised, because it's much better then the first. I think this line of thinking is extremely flawed. Judge a movie by the movie, not by it's predecessor, which is exactly what everyone is doing.

It still drops the ball even if you do judge it on it's own merits. This issue isn't so much that it doesn't live up to it's predecessor, from a pure story telling perspective it just gets it wrong.

__________________
Celebrating 75 years of Batman saving Gotham City.

Fanboys make excuses, real fans acknowledge screw-ups.

Do me a favour - don't break up my posts into multiple quotes when replying, I won't answer back.

Thing about ScarJo/Black Widow was I found it sort of awkward when she was hanging around in her BW outfit for no good reason.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

the diner scene and the following bit at Stark's place just felt odd. You had this dude in a stylized leather coat and an eye patch, and a hot chick in a tight fitting lycra suit walking around wearing this stuff like it was the most normal thing in the world. I know that's how it is in the comics, but it didn't really work for me.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

dude thats what normal is for fury and shield, theyre beyond top secret, they always had the agents around them and always commente on the perimeter being locked down. mind you they are talking to a guy with a reactor in his chest who flies around in a metal suit

It still drops the ball even if you do judge it on it's own merits. This issue isn't so much that it doesn't live up to it's predecessor, from a pure story telling perspective it just gets it wrong.

i liked both 1 and 2 the same, just that number one stands alone as an iron man story. 2 is much more of a iron man building to be in the avengers. theres much more going on and needing to be established.

2 is good, dont listen to us nerds, go and see it and judge for yourself.